We Shall Overcome

It goes without
saying that pornography is a major problem in American culture and in most
industrialized nations today.

Cable and satellite TV companies
promote this garbage because it makes a lot of money. Then there is the
Internet — probably the most dangerous medium because it is anonymous and
bottomless. A priest told me not long ago that “many good men are falling”
because of unchecked Internet access.

Pornography is terrible for parents and
marriage. Moms and dads may try to regulate the computer at their home — click
the “history” button on your Web browser; if it’s empty or nearly so, something
is being concealed — but what happens when children or teenagers go over a
friend’s house? Certainly parents need to discuss love and marriage with their
children before the culture gets to them with its warped and corrupting ideas.
And let’s not forget what “virtual infidelity” can do to a marital bond.

But, these days, it’s not just
pornography. We’re bombarded with more subtle, and thus more insidious, sexual
imagery and suggestiveness everywhere we turn — movies, music, billboards,
magazines, you name it. (We won’t even get into
some of the styles you see wherever you go and live, including in church.)

What’s wrong with all this “openness”?
Simply this: It promotes an understanding of human sexuality that is totally
contrary to what God intended. Sex is promoted as a great way to “entertain”
ourselves. Forget commitment or children. In this way of thinking, your partner
or yourself is only to be used as an object of recreation and pleasure.

Now none of this is a revelation to
those reading this column. As Bishop John Nevins of the Diocese of Venice,
Fla., pointed out in a pastoral letter he wrote about pornography back in the
1980s: “Any American who knows history can testify that the great Roman Empire
was not conquered by an outside enemy, but died from within due to immorality.”

I believe that, if we do not change
course, the United States will follow the Roman Empire. And what is the remedy
to this moral cancer? The Gospel of Jesus Christ.

“Husbands, love
your wives, even as Christ loved the Church and handed himself over for her to
sanctify her, cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, that he might
present to himself the Church in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such
thing, that she might be holy and without blemish,” wrote St. Paul in his
letter to the Ephesians. Now, I know you can quote me studies that say a high
percentage of Americans believe in God. Fine. However, God sometimes seems to
have little say in our daily moral lives. Most of us may be Christians, but our
culture nowadays is anything but.

The ocean is vast and our boat seems so
small against it. What can we do? Fast, pray, make sacrifices in union with
Jesus. Remember how the God-banning Soviet Union fell without a shot. Never
before has this happened in the history of the world. Why did it happen now?
Because God can do great things for those who have faith.

Don’t despair just because this junk is
everywhere. Work as a family to conquer this culture for Christ!

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